A modern collection that echoes the prints, materials and colors of the Women’s and Men’s shows, with colorful tweeds, La Greca jacquard patterns and faux furs.
Gianni Versace defined late 20th century glamour and invented supermodels. Between history and curiosities, we remember the Italian designer
In short, pure creativity that becomes legend. Just as happens in classic myth. Gianni Versace passed away (too) prematurely on July 15, 1997, leaving a deep void. And still today, amid mystery and bitterness in his mouth, more than twenty years after his tragic unexpected death on the stairs of his Miami home at 1116 Ocean Drive, the story is told of a man who shaped a new collective imagination, thanks to his creative power and sartorial skill.
Fine interpreter of that eccentric and extravagant taste, proposed in the early 1900s by Poiret, Gianni Versace (born 1946) is among the leading names that made “Made in Italy” a guarantee, recognized internationally. Giorgio Armani stylist who deconstructed the jacket and created greige, Valentino Italian couturier who conquered Paris and paraded in the French capital, and then Gianni Versace who presented at the same time a sartorial training, derived from a period of apprenticeship in his mother’s tailor shop in Reggio Calabria, combined with a stylistic experience formed before founding his fashion house. More than once he will declare that “the true artist is the tailor.”
To understand its history, we must first understand the context: Milan, as the new capital of fashion, as well as the meeting point of design/industry/printing, socially conscius city. And it is here that Dionysian glamour is born, poised between baroque, rock and pop: a creativity that exalts sensuality and carnality, as well as the total absence – in the artistic sense – of any inhibiting restraint. Gianni Versace proves himself unprejudiced in invention, in the combination of colors and shapes (it is thanks to him that today we wear leather and silk and a safety pin can be sexy), daring with new materials, often inspired by his Mother Earth, as well as the works of Magna Graecia. Volutes and capitals stand out in his patterns laden with bright colors, while the medusa becomes the logo as well as a sign of recognition.
The adventure began, as we anticipated, at an early age, alongside his mother Franca who owned one of Italy’s leading tailors. From her he learned the secrets of the trade.
Gianni Versace moved to Milan in 1972 to take over from Albini as stylist at Callaghan’s: before long he was walking through the door of Genny’s and then Alma’s. In 1978 he founded the Maison with his brother Santo and Claudio Luti: in strokes of prints, draping and metallic mesh, with models charged with sensuality, he dominated the catwalk. “When people look at Versace,” the designer will say, “they must feel terrified, petrified, just like when you look into the eyes of Medusa.” Thus an icon was born at the first runway show at Milan’s Permanente.
With its exaltation of the body, glamorous to the nth degree, and kaleidoscopic métissage Gianni Versace would deeply mark the 1980s and then the 1990s. At his side, we would soon find his sister Donatella Versace, who would soon become an ambassador of the Versace world herself, and would ferry the family business into the new millennium.
The dresses of oroton: from the 1982 collection to Patty Pravo’s look
The epic September 2017 tribute, which saw supermodels-Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Carla Bruni , and Helena Christensen-in gold dresses, was an amarcord. In fact, we have to go back to the 1982 fashion show, when the Reggio Calabria designer chose the technological fabric,oroton, to make a series of dresses. This is a special metal mesh that, unlike the armor chosen ten years earlier by Paco Rabanne, shows a soft hand and a remarkably light weight to create silver and gold dresses.
Carla Bruni, Claudia Schiffer, Donatella Versace, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen
Victor VIRGILE
Without setting himself any limits, driven by his vision, he draped this metal creating a sensational collection of gold dresses. In a short time they became a hallmark of his sensual style, repurposed with an artistic key quoting Klimt or making indelible images, such as Parry Pravo at the 1984 Sanremo Festival. Simply Divine.
In 1989, the baroque print shirt with video game colors
After the first geometries, Gianni Versace dives into the virtual world proposing unprecedented psychedelic prints, full of life and virtuosity. All proposed in the colors of video games. The designs are a melting pot of contrasting aesthetics: cinema, theater, ballet, rock, pop, jazz, neo classical and neo baroque. Nelson Mandela loves them so much that Naomi Campbell seals their encounter with a model signed by the Italian fashion house, while Elton John and Elizabeth Taylor will ask for a customized version with their respective portraits.
Naomi Campbell gives a Gianni Versace shirt to Nelson Mandela
Louise Gubb
Today his vintage men’s and women’s shirts have not only become an object of desire for collectors but a true source of inspiration for contemporary collections, beloved even by the younger generation.
The tribute to Andy Warhol
If Salvator Dali sensed that art had all the potential to contaminate other sectors, including show business, Gianni Versace applied this theory. In addition to references to Classical Greek and Baroque art-closely linked to his homeland-we also find more contemporary references in his collections. During his trip to New York he discovered the influence of pop art in America, and so he decided to create a collection that paid homage to Andy Warhol.
1991 brings colorful, irony-laden clothes to the runway: prints that reproduce James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, faithful to the serial repetition that, in pop art, tells of the economy of consumerism. The Italian designer not only makes us reflect on the relationship between fashion and art but also proposes a new visual culture that celebrates contemporary society. It is no longer a communication only through image but also through dress.